Page 3 of Stirring Up Love
Simone laughed. “The last thing I need is a man’s help in my restaurant.”
Or anyone’s for that matter. She needed to show the town she hadn’t just inherited the deed to this place; she’d earned it.
Years of shadowing her grandpa at the smoker, cooking up batches of sauce, proofing dough, and working the temperamental fryer had laid the groundwork, and her experience in the city had given her the knowledge and vision needed to push this restaurant—this whole town—into the twenty-first century.
Most people still thought of Honey and Hickory asWayne’s place. But tomorrow everything would change. The first farmers’ market of the season offered a chance to step outside Pops’s shadow and stake her claim as the face of barbecue in western Illinois. Should be an easy coup since there was no other decent barbecue joint in the whole county.
Start with a fresh coat of paint, follow up with sales.
All part of the plan.Herplan.
CHAPTER 2
FINN
Finn fished the single key from his pocket and unlocked the door, shifting the bag of groceries higher on his hip. He sidestepped paint cans and a caulk gun, then dumped the paper bag on the counter. Glow from the streetlamps shone in through curtainless windows, and he fumbled around for a light switch. Retraced his steps and found one by the back door.
Then, after leaving the door ajar, he trotted down the back steps and reached in through the broken passenger window to hoist out his cast-iron skillet and giant stockpot from atop a tattered duffel bag. A basketful of clean laundry occupied the back seat, the chemical-laced freshness from dryer sheets fighting a losing battle against the stale smell of mildew from yesterday’s rain showers.
Nose wrinkled, Finn looped the duffel bag over his shoulder, reached around and pulled a ziplock bag full of cooking utensils out of the sagging seat-back pocket, and hauled all the supplies inside. He kicked the door closed with his heel. The scuff mark wouldn’t go unnoticed, but he’d clean it off before he left in the morning.
He set the pans on the sparkling new range and smothered a yawn with the back of his arm, worn out from a long shift at Bellaire, thefine-dining restaurant where he worked as a chef. But he popped open a Red Bull and did a quick circuit of the house to check rooms.
Wouldn’t do to be caught unawares, not with his reflexes, or lack thereof. When he reached the spacious living room, he paused, adjusting the strap of the duffel where it dug into his neck.
A Darius Shield Realty sign had been hammered into the sod in the front yard—a warning his time in this house was running out. Warnings, the chance to reconcile himself with moving on; those were a luxury. Too often in his past he’d awoken in one home and fallen asleep in another, without a goodbye. Out front, a solid wood post anchored theFor Salesign, as sturdy as the insulated walls of the house around him, signaling to prospective buyers they’d get a solid foundation. A home.
Finn turned his back on the bay window. Home was a foreign concept to him, but the embrace of a warm kitchen was as close as he ever got. And these days, he conquered the loneliness through cooking. Healed the notion of insecurity by creating meals that made people stop, and stay, and savor.
Temporary, yes. But when he cooked for people, he created that sense of home he’d never had. And he hoped someday to use his culinary training to give others that same sense of hope. Of security, and a future, regardless of their past.
He scrubbed his hands at the apron sink and checked the clock on the gleaming stainless microwave. Five hours to cook and sleep would give him an hour’s leeway to pack up and remove traces of his night here. Doable, if he got right to work.
Juggling a full-time job and a new venture selling homemade barbecue sauce would’ve been less stressful if he’d had a permanent address, but a small business loan required credit and assets, and since his net worth amounted to a leaky air mattress and a car on its last legs, his best friend, Darius Shield, had offered to let Finn bunk at his investment properties during construction.
Saying goodbye to the bedroom he’d sublet from a stranger off Craigslist hadn’t been a hardship, and he’d used the money he saved on rent to fund his company, and in turn he hoped someday his barbecue sauce business would finance his bigger dreams.
Early stages now, though, and he had an idea for a new recipe that just might give his line of barbecue sauces an edge over other brands. He chopped the tops off a handful of garlic bulbs, then fired up a burner on the gas stove and glugged vegetable oil into his stockpot. Cranked on the oven—hot—and set the garlic in the cast-iron skillet and drizzled on olive oil.
To the pan on the stovetop, he added brown sugar and tomato sauce. Balsamic vinegar and molasses. Soon the scent of roasted garlic filled the kitchen, accompanied by the homey hiss and pop of bubbling sauce.
In the zone, he envisioned the components for his new blend as clearly as if they were scribbled on the subway-tile backsplash behind the cooktop like ingredients on a handwritten recipe card. Mustard, cayenne, salt, pepper. His hands moved with muscle memory—slicing, stirring, seasoning, blending the sauce to a fine puree. The earlier sense of intrusion was evaporating along with the extra liquid in the pot.
Lulled into security, he tasted the sauce—full of depth and layers of flavor—then turned around and flung the wooden spoon into the sink. Except he wasn’t alone in the kitchen.
Behind him stood the tall and substantial form of his best friend in a three-piece suit. The sauce-covered spoon continued on its fateful trajectory and whacked into Darius’s chest like it was a bull’s-eye. It left a giant red splotch on his silk tie and clattered down, coming to rest not on the immaculate engineered-hardwood floor but atop Darius’s gleaming loafers.
Finn made a belated dive to catch the spoon, but unfortunately so did his friend. They collided heads and wound up in a pile of limbs like football players grabbing for a loose ball. At least that’s what he assumedcaused football pileups. His experience was limited to what he caught from the kitchen during Super Bowl parties.
Hand to his aching skull, he surveyed the damage. Darius looked like he’d lost a battle with a ketchup-wielding toddler. Streaks of barbecue sauce covered his dove-gray suit and glistened on his no-longer-pristine shoes.
Finn’s shoes, on the other hand, hadn’t even been pristine when he first bought them from the neighborhood thrift store last year. His best friend was his opposite in almost every way—driven, successful, put together, with a stature that commanded attention.
Darius had to duck through the doorways in the old houses he renovated, and his gym-built muscles made quick work of demoing cabinetry and smashing through lath and plaster walls. Finn stood just shy of six feet, and the only muscles he could boast of came from spending hours at the cooktop at the restaurant and lugging boxes of inventory. And unlike Finn’s unruly brown waves, Darius kept his black curls clipped close to his head, his face clean shaven.
Battling the feeling of inferiority that threatened every time his friend came around, he wiped a glob of sauce off his own scruff-covered chin. “You could’ve told me you were coming.”
Darius fixed him with a death glare. “It’s my house.”
